Discussion: How to Stop Worldwide SPAM

[bpinning]

Hey all,

I just been wondering if there is a way of stopping all the SPAM flying around the net?

The "2003 enactment of the CAN-SPAM Act, the United States failed to cut back the amount of spam originating from its shores each quarter." From Sophos: U.S. Spammers Gaining Ground -

http://www.cio.com

Who do you all think is a possible solution?

Brett

 

[paulha]

Spam filtering

 

[Zelandakh]

Simple choices:
1. Every ISP adopts a similar system to Star Internet and filters spam as it passes through their systems.
2. Every email admin sets up their SPF record on their DNS.

Reasons why it doesn't happen:
1. Spammers pay ISPs for services. Spammers make a LOT of money.
2. Stopping Spam puts the anti spam businesses out of business.

Money makes the world go round.

 

[58sniper]

Except that SPF doesn't work. It's easily fooled.

Pat Richard, MCSE MCSA:Messaging CNA
Want to know how email works? Read for yourself -

http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt

 

[Zelandakh]

The premise though is good:

Example:
Your mail server connects to mail.tek-tips.com to send an email.
The Tek Tips mail server says hello and asks who you are. Your server responds that the email is from PatRichard@58sniper.com.
The Tek-Tips server then looks up 58sniper.com in its DNS records to see the IP address listed in the SPF. It compares this to the IP address it is receiving the email from.

If this matches, it accepts the email.
If it does not match, the email is dropped.

If everyone published their SPFs and everyone also started insisting checking it, spam would be gone tomorrow except for spam from hotmail, yahoo etc who would then need to police their own systems.